[private] someone's marching through the fire to find you; ilka

[Ilka]

Faultlines tremble underneath my glass house

There has never been any need for forgiveness, not even once in so many long, beautiful years. She had, of course, known of his pain even if it was something she could not personally understand, even if there were pieces of his truths he could never bring himself to share with her. She knew how pain worked, how it twisted and warped and made things seem different than they were. She had seen in it him, and again in their son, Illum, until he was entirely unreachable. But there had never been a need for apology, never anything for her to forgive. She was wholly capable of loving them even while they tried not to break apart.

He crushes her against his chest, and the love in the gesture fills her with a warmth that, for a moment, makes everything feel like it’ll be okay. She touches her dark lips to the stiff muscle of his shoulder, tracing quiet kisses across the expanse of mottled blue and dark hairs. She can feel his lips against her skin, too, warm and searching as the fear in his voice begs her to listen.

She pulls back from him, immediately reaching to touch her nose to his, to let her lips wander to the crook at the corner of his mouth where the skin is so soft and the small hollow is the perfect size for her kisses. She tries to steady him with her love, touching her nose to his chin and pushing forward again to follow the curve of it back to his jaw, down his throat and his neck, back to the heart beating furiously inside his wide chest.

“Together then.” She agrees, exhaling warmth against the tightness of muscle beneath roan the same color as a churning ocean. “You won’t lose me,”, she promises, though it is the kind of promise she has no right to make, no ability to keep, “I am too stubborn to be parted from you.” And she smiles, because at least that feels true. 

But the smile fades again, and those light brown eyes darken with a pain she does not know how to ease. “I wish they were all here still, I cannot bear not knowing if they’re okay.” Her eyes close to hold in tears that wait in quiet depths, to seal in a sadness he doesn’t need ever to witness. “I feel as though I’ve let them down.”

Ilka

@[Shahrizai]